30 weeks with Emelia: I trained the toddler to give me foot rubs

This is 30 weeks:

It’s the kid offering to rub your feet and then feeling like “Seriously Mom, stop with the photo documenting.”

For real, 30 weeks is amazing and incredible and holy mother it hurts to walk!

I’ve started using my pregnancy belly support tank top at times because walking long periods of time make my belly ache. I can’t even believe I’ve gotten to this point already.

Week 30 brought another doctor’s appointment with biophysical profile. Chris and Olivia both came with and Olivia got to wave to her sister and her sister frantically waved back (read: kicked me repeatedly in the cervix as she swung her feet around happily and waved an arm). Still breech, now actually in the same position as Olivia was my whole pregnancy with her. Her head is pushed up below my ribs on my right side. It’s reminiscent to how I can still imagine feeling Olivia. Feet up by her face, ankles crossed. I don’t know why my babies like this position but jokes on her because if she doesn’t high tail it head down by 36 weeks, my doctor is going to make her.

I was having a lot of worry about this breech thing over the last week and I know she still has plenty of time to turn and I know she has a good amount of fluid, but still. She’s been in this position the last few weeks and I don’t want it to become like Olivia where she stayed there permanently.

I had that conversation with my doctor when I saw him and he said we could turn her at 36 weeks and if she moves, we can turn her again at 37. He’s willing to go another couple days if she were to flip back and that point, he can induce me in order to make her come out head first vaginally. He told me he had a patient where he must have turned her baby five times before he turned the baby around 37 weeks and broke her water to induce her, knowing she really didn’t want a C-section and he didn’t either. So I’m relieved to know there’s a plan in place in case she’s stubborn like her sister was.

She passed her BPP and we saw her active on screen, her little lips sucking and her feet waving around. I just want to squish her cheeks, but she needs to stay put for two more months.

He’s happy with my blood sugars. My fasting numbers are still looking great and when I eat complex carbs with protein and fiber, I do good on my one-hour checks. There was a night I ate two burrito sized flour tortillas as a quesadilla and didn’t walk after since that was after the state fair and I was exhausted and it was 154 (he wants it under 130) and another hour later it was still 144 (it was supposed to be under 120). I was experimenting with how my body reacted to different meals, so now I know THAT’S not a good choice. But I did eat two corn tortilla tacos the next night and my numbers were fantastic. I asked him if this officially diagnosed me with GD and he said I was heading there, but thought I was doing a good job at managing my numbers.

Basically, I think he’s wanting me to treat myself as having GD just in case, which I’m fine with. I asked if I should be seeing the diabetes educator, but he said he doesn’t like to send people to them because they put people on too many carbs and then put them on insulin. Which is crazy, because I’ve been reading about that. So… here’s hoping things continue to look good.

What’s going on with Queso

Her HR was 136 in the office. Measurements will be taken in another two weeks. According to my app, her skin is smoothing out, her fingernails are growing, and she’s now strong enough to grasp a finger (or her umbilical cord).

Her movements are now less hard kicks and more pushes and rolls. Though sometimes she can still make me jump with her frantic sudden movements. And last night I felt this weird (so weird) whole-body roll that freaked me out. I don’t think she necessarily turned head down, but she was definitely up to something.

There was one night on our trip last week (technically I was 29w6d) where I woke up to — surprise — pee and when I lay back down, she didn’t move like she always does. After a few minutes, I got up to drink cold water and lay back down. Still nothing. So I did what every good crazy-ass pregnant person does: I started prodding at my belly to wake her up. Still nothing. I drank more water. Poked again. Nothing. By this time I’m all out panicking, wondering if I should wake Chris and head to the hospital (luckily there was a big hospital nearby) and OMG what’s going on? She’s OK, she has to be OK. But why wasn’t she moving? She always moves when I lay back down in the middle of the night.

You guys, I was going crazy. And then she squirmed. And proceeded to give me ten kick counts in like 3 minutes. Including a cervix shot. I teared up when I told Chris the next morning. It’s never-ending, the worry.

What’s going on with me

My blood pressure has been pretty stable hovering mostly around 135/83. I’m praying it doesn’t increase again. My sciatica has been a little worse the last few days and Chris has had to do a lot of massages (lucky him) but it’s really been helping.

Constipation = sucks. Worse than it was my whole pregnancy before this. But due to my eating better the heartburn hasn’t been terrible. I’m officially up now twice a night (sometimes three if I’m lucky) to pee. I’ve been feeling more tired lately and having more RLP where I’ll have pains at the base of my belly that hurts when I walk. The Braxton Hicks have been in full force, and there was one night I think I was either having a lot of them, or Queso was pressing her head into my side really hard because I feel the tightening the most on my right side where her head is.

Nursery progress

Eh. Not much has been done there. In fact, the air fryer is still sitting on the nightstand. But I’m going to be working on packing my hospital bag, packing the diaper bag, and starting my birth plan this week. I also want to get some things up on her wall. We have a bunch of big baby equipment we need to take out of storage like the car seats and bouncer and get the stuff washed and ready.

Since I’m for sure being induced at 38 weeks, we’re looking at the last week in October which means this baby will most likely be here right before Halloween.

1st-trimester bump photos

2nd-trimester bump photos

3rd-trimester bump photos